Monday, 31 August 2009

The Martial Arts - The Legion

My attractive young ladyfriend thinks the venue is nice, like a department of an All Saints shop, the clientel all wearing black white and shades of brown.

Its rock, not too hardcore, but rock, amongst other fashion vibes, in attendance.

A hushed silence falls over the audience as they take to the stage, The Martial Arts have traveled a long way to be here tonight.

Few people believe the story about how the got to number three in the Swedish album charts but I swear its true. How their MySpace page demos were picked up by a record label and they were flown by helicopter to Stockholm to record the album and then returned to semi-obscurity in Glasgow.

Green Day urgency in the vocals and drums, but fronted by Paul Kelly (who's looking more and more like David Tennent every time I see him).

They started off with their heavier tracks which some found it jarring compared to the rest of the set.

I was trying to explain how I thought The Martial Arts sound like Elvis Costello, but tonight they're not so much, with just Paul's scratchy vocals and 'woah woah wah's.

Nic Denholm joins them on keyboards for a couple of songs, introduced by a convoluted story about The Owsley Sunshine and Joe Kane. Only a couple of people in the crowd know or care. I do, I like the Venn diagram of the Glasgow bands overlap. Pete Frame could do a cracking rock familytree.

Stand out tracks of the set have to be 'Duality' and 'Exploding Crushing Inevitable'. The whole album is available to download for free from here. It was a cracking night, I'm wondering if it was the first time they've played London and will The Martial Arts be back soon?